I wanted to see how deep the rabbit hole goes... In other words, I was trying to implement portable GUI that would run on Windows and Linux.

In order to do that, I needed to install Linux. No problem - I know Mandrake is generally quite user friendly and my VMWare Workstation is dying for some attention (I'm lying of course - all those CTP versions are keeping my VMWare quite busy but it sounded better this way). Installation went without a hitch, I installed both Gnome and KDE, spent a bit of time wondering how to configure various things but all in all it was quite smooth experience.

In order to use Glade (hopefully solution to my portable GUI problem) I had to build it from sources. I couldn't find it, but if you know where to get RPMs for Glade please let me know. Naturally, build failed due to a few missing developer components and this is where I found Mandrake Control Center and Media Manager.

Being Windows user, this looked very close to Windows Update so I took it for granted that it should work in a similar way. Well, it does, but you have to configure sources of updated packages yourself. This is probably a good time to present exhibit A, dialog you get when you want to add a new update source:

Looks straightforward, but it ain't. Ignore for now the fact that OK and Cancel button are in the “wrong” place (what is it with Gnome anyway, this seems to be a standard convention?). Even if you somehow find out where to get the addresses for update sources (more on that in a moment) the dialog insists that you choose protocol (is is HTTP/FTP etc) and that you split URL into fixed and relative path, even though the UI with the not selected check box implies that you don't have to do this. I tried entering only full URL and it did not work. Heck, entering manually split URL did not work either. Needless to say, software could do all this for you (split URL, detect protocol) thus this is a standard case of useless UI - it's there, but it is no more easier to use than a command line.

Which bring us to the point of finding update links. With a bit of struggle I managed to find this site: Easy URPMI. Make a few simple choices (which Linux distribution, which version etc) and you're done - it spits out commands that, when entered in a console, do essentially the same thing as the above UI, except that these work. Of course, there was no “give me protocol, give me absolute and relative URL” nonsense whatsoever (try it). At least when I got back to the UI I could see that newly added site showed up there. Sigh.

Some developers just don't get it. GUIs are easier than command line interfaces (for average user) but that does not mean that you should just slap together few controls and put them on a dialog. You have to offer a choice that is tangibly better than command line interface. You have to work more so that user has to work less.